It’s Friday! Gigantic gets you ready for the weekend with our comprehensive #NewMusicFriday playlist plus all the vital info on the hot new acts. We even have tickets on sale so you can hear all your new favourite tunes played live!

Singles

Songwriter Jamie Lawson left his Plymouth home to play pubs and bars all around the UK whilst still only a teenager. He released his debut album ‘Last Night Stars’ in 2006 and subsequent titles ‘The Pull Of The Moon’ and ‘Wasn’t Expecting That’ as digital downloads, seeing his name spread quickly over the internet.

In recent years, Lawson was the very first act to be signed to Ed Sheeran’s Gingerbread Man Records for the release of his eponymously titled third album which shot straight to the top of the UK charts whilst also heading out on tour to play support for Sheeran. His success continued with following album ‘Happy Accidents’.

Lawson has just released his inspirational new single ‘Testify’ which, with its sumptuous tones and heartfelt melodies, sets him up perfectly for big things in the new year including a Spring tour.

Deaf Havana once again broke the Top 10 with their new album ‘Rituals’, released earlier in the year. The Norfolk based post-hardcore quintet chose to pursue a new direction which saw singer James Veck-Gilodi travel to Sheffield to stay with their long-term sound engineer Phil Gornell for a song writing session which would last almost half a year.

The result was a record which takes more inspiration from the current popularity of synthpop, adapting the more emotional side of electronica to create a bright sound loaded with impassioned depth.

“Previously I’d write the chords on my acoustic guitar, put down a voice note for a melody and we’d translate it to instruments. This time we would find a weird sound we liked for the intro or come up with a drum loop. There’s a song on this album that has one guitar on it, it’s barely there, it’s all vocals and synth pads. We spent a lot of time challenging ourselves. Working this way was completely alien to me, but it works.” – James Veck-Gilodi

Continuing this period of bold experimentation, Deaf Havana have just released a video showing their live performance of their new track ‘Hell’ for The Soho Radio Vinyl Sessions which sees the song cut directly to the record in a single take!

‘Predicable’ is the new single from Shaun Canning and Julie Knox, better known as Love Sick, and is taken from their recent EP release ‘No Sleep’. The Glaswegian pairing have been one of the years hottest new acts to emerge, impressing all with their thoughtful take on electronica.

"’Predictable’ is about how monotonous life can be and wanting to escape that and do something different. Music has always been our escape and this song deals with our relationship with music; the ups and downs and our love/hate relationship with it. The song came about after we’d both got back from work and managed to channel this frustration into making music - we actually ended up working all night finishing it off, hence one of the reasons we called the EP ‘No Sleep’."

Despite the subject matter, ‘Predictable’ is far from dull and celebrates the call to adventure with a bouncy beat that rides underneath Knox’s vocals which rise to inspire to break from the daily grind during the chorus. It sits neatly within the densely atmospheric EP which was created late into the night, hidden away from prying eyes, allowing the pair the creative space to exorcise all the frustrations.

“The ‘No Sleep’ EP is a snapshot of where we’re at today. It feels like we are laying the foundations of what’s to come and was difficult to pick just 4 tracks from those recent sessions. We named the EP after the weeks of near-sleep deprivation we went through recording and writing, trying to juggle part time jobs with making music, which usually meant having to start sessions after 9pm and then working until 5am, sometimes later and then just feeling exhausted throughout the day. For us it’s when our best work comes out - it’s like your mind quietens down at night and you can really let the creativity flow.”

Albums

Your favourite Mancunian pop rockers are back with their third album curiously titled ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships’ which turns out to be The 1975’s musical exploration of how the internet has completely transformed the way we live.

Singer Matty Healy further explains;

“The internet, in its early form, was supposed to be able to connect you to the kind of people you already knew There were a lot of cypher punks who saw it as this utopian, digital, unmonitored transfer zone, but most people just thought, ‘I’m going to be able to stay in touch with my Grandad’, or ‘I’m going to be able to send Greg from work this thing’. Not: ‘I’m going to be able to get into an argument about fucking FGM with a Ugandan politician’, which you can do now. Anything that’s absurd and mental as you want to do, you can engage with it on the internet.”

But don’t worry if you can’t quite get your head round all that lot! The 1975’s third outing is a lot more fun than it sounds. Fifteen tracks that encompass everything from chilled R&B, alt pop, heartfelt acoustic numbers, spoken word science fiction and bright indie pop.

Bewildering and enthralling in equal measure, today has seen the release on infamous creative and conceptual artist TOMM¥ €A$H’s new album ‘¥€$’. Over the past year, €A$H has developed into a true cult phenomenon, with his singles ‘Pussy Money Weed’ and ‘Little Molly’ accumulating an incredible 10 million YouTube streams combined. Audiences were drawn to his unique take on hip hop combined with his psychedelic imagery which was soon picked up by the critics with Crack calling him “an uncompromising pop provocateur” and HighSnobery noting “When it comes to crafting bizarre, unsettling, but irresistible visuals, Tommy Cash is unparalleled.”

The first taste of €A$H’s new oddity album came with the release of his techno inspired single ‘X Ray’ which saw him enlist producer Danny L Harle to create their modern rave classic. €A$H continued to create a dream team including A.G. Cook (PC Music, Charli XCX, Hannah Diamond), Amnesia Scanner (FKA Twigs, David Byrne), Danny L Harle (Charli XCX, Caroline Polachek, Nile Rodgers) and Boys Noize (ASAP Rocky, Erol Alkan, Jean Michel Jarre) for ‘¥€$’ to make one of the most euphoric if not utterly bizarre records of the year.